This is going to be more like a civil rant than an essay.

Improvements and making a trick your own. This is a big issue for me. It seems that everyone is marketing so-called improvements to teenagers that don’t know any better. Unfortunately, we live in a time when it’s alright to replace a Pass with a Double Undercut or a Shuttle Pass with a Spellbound Change and call it a new effect. Worse is when someone takes a great effect and tears it apart, adding in there own touches as an improvement. This is a serious problem that magicians just can’t ignore.

When did changing a move make something new? When did that become acceptable? It’s no different than me copying Romeo and Juliet word for word and using a word processor to replace Romeo and Juliet and George and Shaniqua. If that’s alright, I have a soon to be classic book just waiting to be published. What makes it alright to publish an effect replacing the Side Steal and Top Palm with a Spread Cull and Bottom Palm? Replacing one move doesn’t make it new. If you want to improve an effect, change the handling to one that works better. Making something work best for you and your style is what it’s all about, right?

As for making a trick your own, it’s something that has to be done to grow. I’m not recommending that everyone tries to create brand new acts of their own material. Some people just aren’t that creative, at least not at first. I’m talking more along the lines of working on your own presentations that fit you and modifying some of the mechanics to things you’re more comfortable with. As I mentioned before, changing a move or sleight doesn’t make the effect new. It does make it better for you to perform though. That’s the key. If your effects aren’t your own to some degree, you’re no different than any other magician in the eyes of your audience.

As for marketing improvements, make sure they improve the effect. I’ve heard of people marketing improvements of effects designed to eliminate a certain move. In this effect, the performer wanted to eliminate a Palm. In doing so, he had to add a Shift, a DL, and a Top Palm. Yeah, in trying to eliminate a Palm, he added two other sleights and a Palm. Why convolute the effect like that. Towards the end of his life, the Professor admit that he was “now trying to remove the moves from the effects.” He was trying to simplify the handlings of the effects to make them clearer to the audience and easier for him to do. This is Dai Vernon saying this, not some lazy kid sitting on his parents couch with a box of ding dongs and the remote control. I have no problem with people marketing improvements, but make sure they improve the original. A great example, at least for me is Vernon ’s Travelers and Ortiz’ Hitchcock Travelers. Darwin Ortiz thoroughly improved the main problems in the original so that it works better in my shows. That’s a noticeable improvement. That’s how you market a new item.

I 100% agree. I was just thinking about this just today. I've added, taken away, or changed SOMETHING in most every effect I do. It makes it personal, maybe in my opinion makes it cleaner.

However, as I was doing this to an effect from Practical Mental Magic, I thought how someone else could do this same thing, then release it on DVD. And none of the magic teens would be the wiser. They'd say "OHH SHINY NEW TRICK!" and buy them by the hundreds.

X you really hit the nail on the head with this one

That post really spoke to me because I'm in the process of putting my thoughts on paper, I got help from a very good mentalist here on penguin that give inputs on my effects as well as making his own. We make SHURE that what we do is new and creative. I can think of 30 tricks in a week but I will keep one of them or sometimes none of them. Since it has been done thousands of time, or I looked through book of my own repertoire that might contain a similar effect, and I remove some more.

One thing, you can't have every book that ever had been written on the subject for the beggining of time. One day or another you will create something that someone else as alredy thought off, and then it snowballs.

If you want to be shure to create something new, make something never done before, a new perspective of a routine. You can also start from a sleight or technique that you like and start from there. Sometime I just think about an effect that I don't know how to perform, something I would see myself perform. Then I pass all the sleights, techniques etc. that could be used or give the same illusion.

I really liked your essay!
~blizt

Thanks. I'm glad if I can help anyone with my thoughts.